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Wednesday, 26 November 2014

The Good, the Bad and the Horrible

We are now happily anchored in Grenada after
completing an approx. 3,255 nautical milepassage from south of Rio.To put
that distance in perspective, it is 3,000 nautical miles from New York to
London, England.Oh, and that doesn’t
include the 1,100 nautical miles we had already done from Buenos Aires to Angra
( south of Rio). It was not all fun and games, more about that in a moment.

Arriving Buzios

Ian, Bridget and I

After leaving Angra we had a very slow 36
hour trip to our next stop in Buzios. We had wind , waves and current into us
the whole trip and so motored , it was excruciatingly slow and very hard on
morale to see a boat speedof 6.5 knots
but speed over ground (SOG) of 3.5 knts. We were practically moving backwards!Buzios was a great little town, made famous
by Bridget Bardot in the ‘60s, she loved to visit apparently. It is now a busy
little tourist town full of shops andrestaurants and has a very nice beachfront. We spent a happy three days there, refueled
with diesel and food, restocked the freezer and cleaned the boat.

Sculptures, Buzios

Three nights out of Buzios is when the S---
hit the fan, so to speak.When cruising
up the Brazilian coast you have the pleasure of sharing the waters (mostly at
night of course) with Brazilian fisherman. Their boatsmostly do NOT show up on radar ( although
they are well lit) , they trail LONG ( several kilometre) nets and when hailed
on VHF radio they may answer but only in Portuguese.If I never see another faffing fishing boat
on my night passages again I will die a happy girl!At the end of the afore mentioned net is a
flashing strobe light, not easily seen .One now needs to decide which f---ing fishing boat this light belongs to
(remember it could be a long way off and distances are very deceptive at
night).Anyway, on this night Ian and I
got it all wrong and ended up running over the net. Yes, our engines were
running at the time which means that the net got wrapped around the props,
resulting in a clunking sound. We immediately put the engines in neutral and
were now dead in the water but attached to a very long net. The offending
fishing boat was along side us by this time with lights on and yelling at us in
Portuguese. There was nothing else for it, Ian, my hero, put on snorkel and
mask, took flashlight and knife, and went overboard to cut the line. It was
dark, the sea was rough and the boat was bucking all over the place, my stomach
still gets knots when I think about it, not a happy time to say the least.Ian eventually got the line cut free and we
were on our way but since the line was still wrapped around the starboard side
prop we now only had one functioning engine. We had two more days/ nights ,
mostly motor sailing into the wind, dreading seeing more fishing boats ( which
we did) before arriving in Salvador. Here we initially anchored in the calm
harbor and Ian went over again and was able to remove the remaining line from
the prop. Now with both engines again functional we moved into a marina and
docked.

Approaching Salvador

Old city, Salvador

Salvador is another large ( 2.5 million people) Brazilian city, there
are many. Its redeeming point is the Old Town. You can take an elevator ride,
the Elevador Lacerda, from the harbor area to the top of the hill where the old
town is located. Again, lots of touristy shops surrounded by lovely old
buildings built in the 17th and 18th century along
cobblestone streets on some quite steep hills. Salvador is the capital of
Afro-Brazilian culture and this was very obvious when browsing the storesfull of African themed merchandise.

We
had several much needed days of rest and boat related work here before again
heading out .A three day/ night
passagewith lots ofsailing this time, it’s so peaceful with the
engines off. We did see more fishing boats at night but no more high seas
drama! Our last stop in Brazil was the small town of Cabedelo. Nothing much to
report about the town but we did a good grocery shop, laundry got done and we
filled up with diesel again.

After officially checking out of Brazil ( no
small feat, three different stops required)we started what was to be atwelve night passage to Tobago. Our longest passage to date by far. I
would describe it as crappy. Ian describes it as horrible!The weather was not the problem. We actually
didn’t have enough wind most of the time, although we did have a few days when
the seas were quite “ bumpy”. It was the monotony of each day. Do your two hour
watch, sleep, prepare food and eat. I actually found I lost my appetite and I
generally love to eat. It took a real effort on my part to occasionally cook up
eggs for breakfast and to heat up a meal in the evening. Doing anything other
than the most basic of housekeeping was out of the question. When not on watch
I basically spent my time lying in bed, which explains my lost muscle tone. Oh,
it was hot too!Anyway, twelve days of
this was way too long for us. The last two nights we had multiple rain squalls
with winds in the 30 knt range and then finally , on a very grey cloudy Monday
we arrived in Tobago, yahoo!

The
boat (Antares 44i) handled beautifully for the whole trip. We had very few malfunctions
and those were for the most part easily fixed. When seated in the cockpit you
are high above the water so that the waves do not seem threatening at all, they
just roll under you. The full enclosure cockpit keeps you warm and dry. If not
for the wind speed dials you’d never know it was blowing 30+ knots out there. I
must say, I felt very safe on Zooropa.

Our
advice to new Antares owners who are considering doing the trip from Argentina
to the Carribean. Don’t.If you really
have a yen for passage making then hire
Pikin and do the Buenos Aires to Angra stretch. Take a few weeks to cruise Isle
Grande, it really is a beautiful area. Then hire a delivery captain and crew and
have them deliver your boatto, wherever,
while you fly home and await its arrival.You then fly down and meet your boat and happily continue withyournew cruising life.

Throughout our time in Brazil the Brazilian people were a pleasure to
interact with. Everybody was friendly, happy and very helpful. I know we made a
mash of their language ( actually using a lot of Spanish) but they appreciated
our efforts and in turn tried their best with English.The
scenery was stunning, especially at Isle Grande and Rio.

Writing this now two weeks after our arrival
in Tobago we are feeling much more positive about our future cruising
plans.The boat is no longer up for
sale!!!